Resources

You want to create one slide for every 2-3 minutes "talk-time."  If you have 5 slides, your presentation should be 10-15 minutes long. Remember: you are the presentation, not your slides.  Fewer slides will also help to keep you from "just reading" your slides to your audience.

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Planning

Before you actually begin to build your presentation, you need to do some planning.  Two important questions you will need to ask yourself are:  what is the purpose of and who is the audience for this presentation?  Am I going to inform? instruct? entertain? or persuade?  Is my audience my peers? people already familiar with the information I am going to present? people who know absolutely nothing about what I am going to present?  Once you have decided upon the answers to these questions, you need to get organized and decide what the content of your presentation will be.  One point to remember that many people seem to forget is: PowerPoint is just a glorified electronic slide show.  PowerPoint was intended to be used as an enhancement to your oral presentation; it is not the presentation--you are!  As you begin creating slides, the content should be the main points you want your audience to get.  You then will provide the explanation and supporting details for the point you want to make.  With that important concept in mind, you are now ready to do some organizational pre-writing.

Pre-writing

You want to organize your thoughts in some kind of visual way.  You can do this by either creating a traditional outline with each roman numeral representing a slide or by creating a storyboard.  I like creating a story board because it helps me better visualize  exactly how my slides will look.  Draw 5 to 10 boxes on a piece of paper and then jot down the points you want to include in each slide as well as any graphics you have in mind that will illustrate your point.

Slide 1

Slide 2

Slide 3

Slide 4

Slide 5

Note: If your students are going through this lesson, it is particularly important to have a storyboard, so they don't waste time and are ready to create when they go to the lab.

Method

When you first open up PowerPoint the following screen will appear:

If you select the AutoContent wizard, you will be asked a few questions about the type, format and design of your presentation. If you select Template, you will choose a professionally created design that will be repeated throughout your presentation. If you choose Blank presentation, you will be creating all of the design elements yourself for your presentation.

For this Unit, we are going to choose Template.  Click on Template and the following screen should appear:

Single click on one of the icons, and you can see what the template looks like in the preview window on the right side of the screen.  Choose one that you like by double clicking on the icon.  I am going to choose Fireball. Next, the New Slide window will appear.

What you see here is a variety of "layouts" for your slides.  Microsoft has created another type of template for you to use that already has the text and graphic place holders created for you. All you will need to do with these templates is select one and then click on the appropriate text or graphic box to add your content.  If you single click on one, it becomes highlighted and a description of the layout is provided to you in the box at the lower right of the screen.  Right now, the first slide is highlighted, and the description box tells us it is a Title slide. Either double click on the highlighted template or click OK.

What you should see now is your first slide, the Title slide with the design you chose earlier.  You should see something like the following:

The two highlighted boxes are text boxes.  Click on the top box to add your own text.  Do the same  for the subtitle.  If you don't want or need a subtitle, leave that box blank.  You are now ready to create the body of your presentation, so save your presentation and then click on Adding Text, Graphics and Video.

Text, Graphics, Video

You are now going to create your second slide.  Click on Insert on the menu bar and then New Slide, or click on the New Slide icon on your toolbar.  Once again the New Slide window will appear.  Choose a layout for your slide.  I am going to choose to have a graphic and a bulleted list.  My slide window will look like the following:

I have highlighted the layout that will allow me to place bulleted text to the left of a graphic.  Double click on the layout or click ok.

To add text, just click on the text boxes and begin typing. To add a graphic, you can do two things:

1. Double click on the graphic placeholder and the Microsoft Clip Art Gallery appears.  Choose a graphic you like from their collection.  If you do not find one in this collection that you like, you can always go to their site on the web by clicking on Clips Online.

2. If you have a graphic file that you have saved somewhere on your hard drive that you would like to use, click on Insert on the menu bar then Picture, From file.  A screen (Select File) will come up that will ask you where your file is located.  Locate your file and then double click on it.  You now should see the graphic on your slide.  If the graphic is bigger that the allotted space, grab the corners of the picture to resize it.

Adding Video

You add video just as you did graphics.  Choose a template with the video placeholder.  Click on the movie camera and the clip art window appears.  Click on the Motion Clips tab at the top of the screen.  Select a category and then a clip.  Click on Insert Clip.  You also have a second option just as you did with graphics.  You can go to the menu bar. Click on Insert, Movies and Sounds and then either Movie from the Gallery or Movie From File.  Please note that PowerPoint only uses .avi, .asf, .ram, .ra file extensions for video.

If you are ready to give your slides some action, click on transitions and animations.

Transitions, Animations

Slide transitions determine how you get from one slide to another.  You can fade in, fade out or enter from the top of the screen or the bottom. You can move from one slide to the other in 40 different ways. You can apply the transition you have chosen to all your slides or to just a single one.  You can access the  transitions in two ways: from the Transition Effects menu or from the Slide Transition dialog box.

Transition Effects menu:  In the slide sorter view , click on the slide to which you want to add transitions.  Click the down arrow tab on the Slide Transition Effects (No Transition) menu and select a transition. In the following, I have chosen a Box In transition.

When you select a transition, an icon will appear below the slide.  If you click on it, it will show you what the transition you chose looks like.

Slide Transition Dialog Box

• In slide view, click on a slide for which you want to add a transition.

• Click on Side Show on the menu bar, then click Slide Transition. A window similar to the following will appear:

• Click on the down arrow where it says "No Transition."  Select the transition you want.  You will see the effect of the transition in the graphic above the transition box.  Note:  you may also apply this transition to all slides or only this particular slide. You also have the option of choosing whether this transition occurs automatically or on a mouse click and you can  add sound when the transition occurs.

• After you have made your choices, click apply or apply to all.

Animation Effects

Animation Effects determine how the text and graphic/video come on to the slide.  They can drop down from the top or fly from the left; they can, just like the transitions, come on to your slide in a variety of ways.  You can access animations in two ways:

1. In the slide sorter view , click on the slide to which you want to add animation. 

Click on the down arrow tab on the Slide Transition Effects (No Effect) and choose the way you want the text to enter.  Note:  on the Title slide in this view, you can only determine the action of the subtext.

2. In slide view, click on a slide for which you want to add animation. A window similar to the following will appear:

• Click on Title 1 and a box appears around your title.  Click on Text 2 and a box appears around your subtitle.

• On the lower left half of the window is "Animation order."  This is the order in which your text will appear on the slide.  Start animation is the way in which the animation will get on the slide: either by the click of a mouse or automatically, however you set it.

• Click on the Effects tab.  A window similar to the following should appear:

• I have already determined the order in which my text will appear on the slide.  Now I want to decide how my text or graphics will get on the slide.  Click on the down arrow where it says Entry animation and sound.  Choose an animation.  I have chosen Fly from the Left for my Title.  If I want sound when my text enters, I can indicate that in the second drop down window (No Sound).  When I click the mouse after my title appears, I can make my title dim or disappear when I click the mouse a second time by dimming the animation in the "After animation" box.  I also can determine how I want to introduce my text:  all at once or a letter at a time by indicating my choice in the Introduce text box.  I have the same options for my subtext which is Text 2 in the window.  I simply click on it, and the text is highlighted, and I can make the same choices as I did for the title for the subtext.

• You can always preview your settings by clicking on the Preview button on the right side of the screen.

You are now ready to see what your presentation looks like in an actual slide show. Either click on Slide Show in the menu bar and then View Show, or click on the Slide Show icon at the bottom of your screen.  You will be able to see what your presentation will actually look like in real time.